General life

So we have been here 6 months now so pretty much life has become normal so to speak.

I have a job working for an English company www.nwix.net twice a week doing remote sales work using a VoIP phone and as im part of the network if I rang you I would actually come up as being in Manchester! I worked with Nick (CEO) about 6 years ago when nwix first started so when I asked him if he new of anything he offered me a job so that worked out very well as I do the 2 days that Finlay is in nursery. I also train a couple of times a week so am keeping my hand in with the PT and hopefully will do more of it now that winter is here.

Paul has almost finished work as the season is almost over. He has to sit his exams and a few more skills to be done but after a summer of hard work on the beach and almost 50 additional dives he is nearly a dive master. So he will amuse himself by building shed, fencing etc through the winter and fit in some relaxing :-)

The weather has changed this week big time, it is cool at night now, if you have a sunny day you could still sit out but you would wear a jumper now and we have a blanket on the bed!! Had a load of rain yesterday so was strange having our first sunday of none beach time! It is still high twenties though during the day and nov is meant to be lovely so we will wait and see.

Finlay seems to be having fun at nursery and understands Greek perfectly and is starting to speak more of it, he knows lots of words to say when he is fighting with them anyway!

So all in all, we are well and truely settled in down and looking forward to the change of season and seeing what it brings.

Previous problems all fixed

Huge delay in updating the blog as I found that if we were not having problems, I wasn’t writing anything and since we have settled in no one would want to read about normal daily life! However I thought that it is time to give an update on previous problems which I am pleased to say, are no longer J

Electricity – after 3 weeks of no electric in August (good in terms of at least you could bbq everything and were certainly warm enough, bad in terms of no aircon as it was more than warm enough and having to go to the supermarket all the time to get ice to keep the milk cool!!!) we eventually got a meter after a couple of trips to Rhodes meeting lawyers, so we are now connected in totality.

Water meter – this was actually a short process in the end, after paying the man at the town hall and not adding to the stamp collection (couldn’t believe it!!!) and only one follow up trip to the town hall to see if they still remembered us, the plumber turned up next door to connect their meter so Paul cornered him and managed to get ours done.

This only left us with one other thing to really do and that was get the Greek plates for the car which we did all of the paperwork for in England. Paul went along to the KTEO (their MOT place) today and after being sent on to customs he was told that he isn’t aloud to import his car as it is a light goods vehicle (Navara!!!) so after a chat about it and lots of ranting and paper work reading, they are going to phone Athens and come back to us in the next week to see if we can import it or not!! So fingers crossed or it will be drive back to the UK and sell it!!

So that’s a problems fixed and updated page and I’ll write another bit with the daily stuff!

Ancient Cameiros

Today Paul actually had a day off so for the first time since he started work we had a 2 day weekend which was fab! We decided to go and have a look at the west coast of the island and headed to Ancient Cameiros via a scenic route which took us off road accross the centre of the island which was lovely and true to the word, scenic indeed, filled with pine and olive trees all the way.

First stop was Kritinia castle (above), Kritinia clings to the side of Mt Atavyros which is a fantastic sight in its own right.

Some views of and from the castle

from Kritinia we drove to Ancient Cameiros which is now in ruins but still an impressive sight. It would sometimes be better if they labled things better out here so that you new what you were looking at! however som photos of the piazza, founstain square, temple of the gods etc

Finlay being a statue

me and my boy

We then drove back the scenic route again through the mountains but we clearly took a differet track to the first one as we came accross a lovely little church where the boys decided to cool off in the outdoor font/drinking fountain or whatever it was!!!

one of many churches you find about the place

thats nice :-)



update

We have had a telephone line and brooadband (may I add very fast broadband) at home now for 2 weeks and since having it I no longer seem to have time to update the blog!

Spent the last couple of weeks endlessly unpacking our stuff which although we sorted it out in Reading, we still have so much stuff that we dont need and no where to put it! Currently all of the tools, my work stuff, photos, books, ornaments etc are on our roof terrace waiting for a home! We have about 3 months until we'll get any rain so they can stay there until then. That in its self is quite strange knowing that you are not going to get any rain infact the only thing that has been happening with the weather is it getting hotter and hotter! It was 44deg yesterday at 5pm when I left to collect Paul from work!

Went to the Magic Kingdom with Karen and Ailbhie yesterday for a day out only when we got there, they dont open until 5pm (the Greeks are mad its for kids!) so ended up in a taverna with a play area trying to avoid the sun!!

We have a pool licence so the only thing left is the electrcity which seems like a mess! the builder is saying he doesnt know where the invoices are for the house and we can not get an electric meter without the invoices, strange system but thats the way it is, so we live in fear that we will just get cut off one of these days (again)

Paul is now at 40 dives and has done some of his skills tests so thats all going in the right direction. I think a work life on the beach is suiting him!

Ive got as far as putting up some PT posters today but dont hold out much hope in this weather but we will see what happens, until then there is always chocolate!!!

so no major disasters to report, in fact all is well in the Villa Avreo ;-)

The day has come ....... the container has arrived!

So Saturday was the big day we've been waiting for (1 month late).. the arrival of the container and naturally it didn't go to plan!

The previous Thursday I had a phone call to say that our stuff had cleared customs and I had to pay an additional 400euros for the pleasure of it being stuck in Athens for a week (storage) even though it wasn't my fault and I didn't want it stuck in Athens. I reluctantly paid it and it would be with us the next day Friday.

Friday came and went.

Saturday I had a call and they said they were coming and would be leaving Rhodes at 10am and arrive with us at 11am. At 10am I had a phone call telling me there was a problem and they would leave at 12am. At 12 I phoned them and they said there was a problem and would phone me back, at 2pm I phoned them and there was still a problem but they hadn't forgotten about me! At 3pm I phoned them and shouted a lot. At 4pm a bloke phoned me to say he was in Pilona where were we, I rushed off in excitement to meet them and guide them in. I parked behind them to make sure that they couldn't go anywhere.
Half an hour later they were still trying to open the container! I kid you not, 3 grown men were hanging off the back of it trying to get the bolt out! They had hammers and saws and whatever else I had begged and borrowed from the neighbours, eventually with a final blow of an axe it opened and the first thing I saw was one of our plants which amazingly was still alive after the 2 months it has been in the dark. There was then a heated debate about something and they started taking out the boxes and putting them on the drive, I think not so after a heated debate by myself they started taking boxes into the house. I was on my own as Paul was at work so they started using 3 doors at the same time and dumping stuff where ever they liked, I started chasing them round getting them to move things, some they did, some they didn't. I tried taking big things out of boxes like the chairs as they were meant to take the debris away with them but it wasn't quite working like that.
A couple of hours later we were surrounded by boxes, Paul was home and had got them to sign something saying they hadn't unpacked so anything broken we didn't know about. We have managed to unpack quite a lot but there is still plenty to do, due to lack of storage so it is all on the roof terrace!

You may have heard of Greek time, but until you experience it you will never understand it!

Mums holiday

My Mum has been here for a week which was nice and Finlay and I got to be tourists :-0

We went up the accropolis in Lindos on a donkey and explored the little white streets, we visited a couple of beaches and sunbathed. We went to the valley of the butterflies and a long morning in Rhodes medival town

There was also a medival night on the sunday of Mums birthday in Lindos so had some dinner out then watched the singing on the square for a bit

Lovely week 

Bits and bobs

The saga so far....

Furniture, i finally got a phone call yesterday (Thursday) to tell me that my paper work had been received (I had since gone through the procedure again and this time couried it to them!!!) that it had cleared customs and was ready to come to us! yeahhhhh, however.... I had to pay an additional 400euro for storage in Athens for the week that it has spent sat there waiting for my paperwork! So because my next day, recorded delivery letter took a week to get there, we have to pay 400euro for storage, this caused another argument but she said that it was port fee's and that there was nothing to be done about it!! So i'm not holding my breath but it should be here today or tomorrow but no phone call yet!!

OTE (telephone and Internet) it turned out on Tuesday that OTE had cancelled our order although no one knows why! so I had to go into Rhodes with a guy from ECS to try and rescue the situation and get it re-ordered! they saved it on the system and has been ordered and sent through to the engineers. We now sit and wait yet again to see when they phone us to come out

Pool licence - we are now into the process of our pool licence, we have been to the police station for a million more stamps on bits of paper and transferred some money, we even have a receipt!

Electricity - still no further forward

Tax - still no further forward

water meter - still no further forward

however it seems to be a good week so far!!!